Friday, January 15, 2016

Chances Aren't.

Oh my God, that was ridiculous. And that poor kicker—hooking a point-blank 27-yarder wide left to vaporize a cocksure Viking triumph. Holy Hell. In one hurried thud, Blair Walsh scrawled his name into the annals of pigskin calamity, alongside other greats like Trey Junkin, Ernest Byner and Tony Romo. In the shank of an eye, Pete Carroll cemented the chance to slap his chinos and chomp his gum for another sixty minutes plus three hours of Chevy commercials.

Granted, placekickers know what they’ve signed on to do. While their teammates repeatedly launch their beefcake into each other, inciting unthinkable peril to body and brain, the kicker… well… kicks. He lopes onto the field, works for two seconds, then trots back off, his chin jutting in exultation or sagging in dejection; no gray area exists for those who boot the rock.

But still, we’re talking about an 81-foot field goal. Missing one is as unlikely as a child vacuuming well. It's as crazy as a goose in a ball pit (Did you picture that goose? Crazy!).

According to ESPN.com, heading into Sunday’s game, kickers had made 188 of 190 kicks, or 98.9% of field goals this season inside thirty yards. That translates to a single turkey every 100 kicks. On the surface, you’d think that 1 in 100 borders on the impossible. And I suppose it does—until it happens.

Like you, me and anyone else who’s ever roamed the planet, we’ve all defied such minuscule odds that a one-percent probability of success seems just shy of a sure freaking thing.

Think about it. Without getting too specific, what do you imagine your chances were of being the "swimmer who won the medal round"? I’ll tell you, it's around one in 300 million. I don’t see Michael Phelps beating a field that large, but by golly, y’all sure did, and without the seven-foot wing span. All you had was a cute little tail that shimmied its way to paydirt.

But if you really want to enter the Land of Blown Minds, let’s look at the endless combination of events that had to transpire to enable your existence. For example, if If it weren’t for Kohar of Kardashian and her unique ability to market nonexistent talent in her 13th century village of Bellairhkadzor, Armenia, she and her five daughters would surely have starved and wiped out an entire branch of the family tree.

Just to fathom a world without them… can’t… won’t.

Anyway, you see what I’m saying? We’ve defied some fairly husky odds to even compete in the sperm sweepstakes. Factor into that the smattering of close calls and near-catastrophes we’ve encountered during the course of our lives, and all told, each of us is a singular link in our lengthy and fortunate legacies. Kind of makes that kicker’s miss seem a little more probable, eh?